agnus Bradbury has
vowed to put his “best
case” for World Cup
selection forward amidst intense
back-row competition.
The Edinburgh man, who has
seven Test caps since his debut
against Argentina in 2016, is
among the back-row men vying
for a spot in Gregor Townsend’s
final 31-man squad for the Rugby
World Cup, but admits he’s trying
not to think about Japan too
much.
“You dare to dream that you’ll be
the one to go; it’s the pinnacle of
your rugby career,” he said, while
adding: “First of all, you dream
to play for Scotland, and then, if
you’re lucky enough, you might
have a World Cup coming up.
“It’s something that you always
dream about and obviously look
forward to, but I’m just focussing
on hard work right now, and on
putting my best case forward
for Gregor.”
‘A lot of quality players will
miss out’
Townsend has shown faith in
Bradbury before - the Head
Coach parachuted him into his
Scotland side to face France in
this year’s Guinness Six Nations
after he had recovered from a
dislocated shoulder - the
Oban-born 23-year-old knows
he will have to be at his best if
he is to make it onto the plane to
Japan with the back-row options
also including John Barclay,
Hamish Watson, Ryan Wilson -
the first choice in 2018 - Blade
Thomson, Jamie Ritchie and with
Sam Skinner able to move into
the back-row from lock.
“Back-row is one of the positions
where a lot of quality players will
miss out,” he acknowledged.
“It’s in the back of everyone’s
heads that the guys you’re
training with, who are helping
you out, who you are sharing
rooms with, are your competition,and the coaches are going to
have to pick a back-row from
them.
“It’ll be a good back-row that
they take because we have
some quality players, but some
good players will miss out for
sure.”
Bradbury’s physicality and 6ft
4in, 17-and-a-half stone frame
have led many to see him as the
solution to Scotland’s lack of an
out-and-out ball-carrying
back-row, a point of difference
that could once again work in his
favour in a selection headache.
But, as Bradbury was quick to
point out, how players perform in
the warm-up games will likely go
a long way to deciding whether
a player makes it on the plane
or not.
“Gregor’s the sort of coach who
is going to pick on form so we’ll
have to see after the warm-up
games”, he suggested.“I’d imagine everyone will get a
shot; it’d be unfair for someone
to not get one after putting in the
amount of work that we have,
and you can’t pick a team if you
can’t see the boys playing.
“For me though, I’m just taking it
one day at a time, and, when my
chance comes, it comes.”
And when his chance comes,
Bradbury will be aiming to do
everything he can to impress
Townsend, not least in areas he
has been tasked to improve on
by his Head Coach.
“I put in the hard work before
with my injury so it’s just about
keeping that going moving
forward,” Bradbury explained.
“One side of my game Gregor
wants me to look at is being
more physical and being more
consistent. I need to work on
being able to repeat what I
do for 80 minutes, rather than
having a good 50, 60 minutes
and then dropping off.”M
BRADBURY
KEEN TO PUT
BEST FOOT
FORWARD FOR
WORLD CUP
SELECTION
“One side of my game Gregor
wants me to look at is being
more physical and being more
consistent. I need to work on
being able to repeat what I do
for 80 minutes, rather than
having a good 50, 60 minutes
and then dropping off”
78 • WWW.SCRUMMAGAZINE.COM • ISSUE 116 2019
RUGBY WORLD CUP - SCOTLAND PREVIEW